"Ghost"

My Girl Scout troop decided to have a séance when we huddled around the fire during a sleepout.  None of my peers had a dead person to call back so I offered my Great Grandpa Winters.  I earnestly chanted with the others until I saw a thick wisp of something that looked like more than smoke.  Aaaaahh!!!!  I yanked my hands away from the girls on each side of me and had a full-blown panic attack.  I loved Grandpa and everything, but I was scared to death to see him in his dead form.

The other girls weren't happy with me for breaking the circle, and I started to wish I'd taken the chance to talk to Grandpa since I missed him.  Shoulda, coulda, woulda... let's make s'mores.

It's one of those days when I stare at the rain and feel uncooperative with the week's word.  There's so many things to write about ghosts and for some reason I don't feel like writing them.  Why should I worry about any lingering spirits' unresolved issues?  Go to the light and leave me alone.

I went to an art event yesterday.  It was fun to attend with live music and plenty of happy, friendly people.  I enjoyed looking at the art, but noticed nobody was walking around with purchases.  Three artists work in a surrealistic style, with Dali-like images.  This isn't original or new.  The paintings weren't even well-done.  Another artist painted vertical lines of different colors which looked like a house painter's samples or a homework assignment.  Another created computer-generated deceptions which pretended to be paintings.  They weren't even original images.  They were knock offs of famous people's photographic portraits.  I started feeling sad.

Thankfully, there were a couple of artists whose work was actually interesting, good, and creative.  They help me keep a grip on my artistic idealism.  Blogland is another way I keep inspired.  Sharing our ideas and work can be inspiring and help us take our work in new directions.  For that matter, even the Dali knockoffs provided some inspiration.  I got on the internet and looked up Dali's work.  I don't care for his melted watches, but I admire other things he did.  In that admiration maybe I can find something that finds a way into one of my efforts?

Sometimes it feels like our muse deserts us.  We stall.  We can feel intimidated by what other people are doing, or superior for that matter.  We can get mired in negatives.  The important thing to remember is the good is always there too.  Inspiration is available.  Find it.  Go to art shows.  Search the web.  Read.  Look at the trees and smell the flowers.  Open yourself up to whatever is around you and explore the good in it.  If you can't get out of your negatives, look for a way to grow in your negatives too.

I finished another painting but there isn't anything ghost-like in it.  Maybe IF will give me a better word for me to show it to you next week?  Wishing everyone a happy and inspiring autumn in the meantime!